Ideas

And you think ideas are like toothpaste that can be squeezed out of its tube?

No, I don’t think they are. They are not like that at all. Ideas are living things. They have a mind of their own — they move and come out whenever they wish, however they wish. Nobody can force them to do anything unless they want it, not even you who’d like to think that you own them and can treat them however you like it. No.

I know them well enough now. You have to talk to them like they were humans; engage them like they were your peers; respect them like you’d treat a king; let them bestow upon you their wisdom, so that you’d be uplifted from your mundane existence.

They are sublime and pure, a creature of light so unlike you who are made of earth, of matter — so rigid you are, that without their help, you can’t move and be flexible and reach the height of your existence. You can’t reach the sky and reach God without their help.

You think you own them. But you don’t. They own you. You don’t enslave them. They enslave you. You are their servants, not they yours. If you treat them with respect, if you submit yourself humbly, they’d love you and grant you your wishes. If you disrespect them, disobey them, challenge them, ignore them, they’d leave you behind — alone and in darkness, you can’t find you way around. You’ll perish. Full stop.

And you still think that ideas are like the toothpaste that you can squeeze out of its tube when you want to brush your teeth?

Think again! Whatever might you put, you’d never get them out — not when you still think that you own them, not when you still think of them as being imprisoned in your tiny bitty skull that can crush into nothing but dust.

Ideas are living things. They have a life of their own as you have yours. So never — ever — think that you are superior to them, nor theirs as inferior to that of yours. They are not, theirs is not. They don’t depend on you, you do on them. Yours and theirs may be equal, but I suspect theirs are closer to the Divinity than yours.